1920s Baby Names

13,525 names were given to children in the United States between 1920 and 1929, ranked below by how many.

A name's place is its total across those ten years. Names that appear in only some of the decade say so, because a name recorded once is a different fact from one recorded every year.

All Girls Boys Unisex

Rankings for

#337
Julius Julius means downy-bearded, and the family claimed descent from Venus — the Julii traced themselves to Iulus, son of Aeneas, which is the genealogy Virgil wrote the Aeneid to dignify.
11,066 in the 1920s
#338
Keith Keith is a boy's name from a Scottish place name, probably from a Brittonic word for a wood.
11,030 in the 1920s
#339
Earnest Earnest respells Ernest, and the Germanic behind it is not mild — eornost meant vigor in battle, seriousness of the deadly kind, long before it settled into the sense of being sincere.
11,014 in the 1920s
#340
Oliver Oliver is a boy's name that entered England with the Normans and has a disputed origin.
11,001 in the 1920s
#341
Olive Olive is a girl's name of Latin origin taken from the tree, whose name comes from oliva.
10,977 in the 1920s
#342
Sadie Sadie is a girl's name that began as a pet form of Sarah, the Hebrew name meaning "princess" or "noblewoman."
10,916 in the 1920s
#343
Ben Ben is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "son," used both as a short form of Benjamin and as a name in its own right.
10,746 in the 1920s
#344
Jim Jim is a boy's name meaning supplanter, shortened from James — which is the same name as Jacob, split into two by Latin.
10,728 in the 1920s
#345
Bennie Bennie means son of the right hand, and Jacob renamed the child to get there — his dying mother called him son of my sorrow, and his father would not let the name stand.
10,692 in the 1920s
#346
Regina Regina is the Latin word for a queen, taken unchanged, and it is still the legal abbreviation in British courts — every criminal case against a defendant is formally Regina versus the accused.
10,690 in the 1920s
#347
Tony Tony is a boy's name from the Roman family name Antonius, whose meaning has never been established.
10,655 in the 1920s
#348
Victoria Victoria is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "victory."
10,601 in the 1920s
#349
Bobbie Bobbie is 83 percent female on record and England and Wales ranks it 523rd on 110 births — far above the United States at 2,072nd, reversing what an American nickname-name would usually do.
10,595 in the 1920s
#350
Henrietta Henrietta named a American state — Maryland was chartered for Henrietta Maria, queen to Charles I, so a French princess's middle name sits on the map of the United States.
10,476 in the 1920s
#351
Della Della has no single parent — it shortens Adela, Delia and Adelaide alike, and it is reviving, at 563rd in the United States and 1,010th in Scotland.
10,423 in the 1920s
#352
Fern Fern seed was believed to make you invisible, and Shakespeare has a character say so — ferns produce spores rather than visible seeds, so the seed itself was thought to be unseeable.
10,414 in the 1920s
#353
Lyle Lyle is a boy's name from the Norman French for "the island," and the l at the front is the definite article rather than part of the word.
10,374 in the 1920s
#354
Bettie
10,362 in the 1920s
#355
Faye Faye is a girl's name of Old French origin meaning "fairy," from a word that traces back to the Fates of Roman religion.
10,360 in the 1920s
#356
Lila Lila is a girl's name with two unrelated origins: the Arabic layla, meaning "night," and the Sanskrit līlā, meaning "divine play" — a concept in Hindu philosophy for creation as a form of play.
10,325 in the 1920s
#357
Edmund Edmund was England's patron saint before George — Edmund the Martyr, king of East Anglia, was killed by a Viking army in 869 and held that position for some three hundred years before a crusader saint displaced him.
10,240 in the 1920s
#358
Guy Guy is a boy's name from a Germanic word probably meaning wood or wide, and one of very few names to have become an ordinary English noun — through Guy Fawkes, whose effigies gave the word its modern sense.
9,993 in the 1920s
#359
Jeannette Jeannette means God is gracious, a French double diminutive of Jeanne — and the -ette ending is doing the same work twice, since Jeanne is already a feminine of Jean.
9,992 in the 1920s
#360
Adeline Adeline is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "noble," from the element adal.
9,932 in the 1920s
#361
Salvatore Salvatore means savior, and it is a title rather than a description — Italian Catholic families gave it as a devotional name naming Christ's role directly, in the way Spanish families use Jesús.
9,892 in the 1920s
#362
Orville
9,806 in the 1920s
#363
Delbert Delbert is recorded in one country and nowhere else — every one of its 47,056 births is American, with no births in any other market in any year on record, which is rare even among American coinages.
9,736 in the 1920s
#364
Angelina Angelina means little angel, and the Greek root behind it means a messenger — the winged being is a later idea layered onto a word for someone carrying news.
9,730 in the 1920s
#365
Ernestine Ernestine is the feminine of the same Germanic word as Earnest in this group — eornost, the vigor of a fight.
9,661 in the 1920s
#366
Archie Archie is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "genuine and bold."
9,614 in the 1920s
#367
Phillip Phillip is a boy's name meaning lover of horses, the doubled-l spelling of Philip.
9,595 in the 1920s
#368
Otis Otis is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "wealth" or "fortune."
9,551 in the 1920s
#369
Clayton Clayton means the settlement on clay, from an English place name that describes the ground it stood on.
9,498 in the 1920s
#370
Katie Katie is a girl's name of Greek origin, a diminutive of Katherine whose meaning has never been settled.
9,443 in the 1920s
#371
Yvonne Yvonne is a girl's name from a Germanic word for the yew tree, by way of Breton.
9,394 in the 1920s
#372
Lottie Lottie is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "free man."
9,375 in the 1920s
#373
Lucile Lucile means light, and France ranks it 467th while the United States has it at 5,006th — a French name that America had and lost, having peaked there in 1917.
9,352 in the 1920s
#374
Lydia Lydia is a girl's name meaning "woman from Lydia," an ancient kingdom in what is now western Turkey.
9,303 in the 1920s
#375
Alex Alex is a name of Greek origin meaning "defender of mankind."
9,277 in the 1920s
#376
Teresa Teresa is a girl's name whose meaning is uncertain, though harvester is the usual reading.
9,261 in the 1920s
#377
Essie Essie shortens two names with nothing in common — Esther, whose root is probably Babylonian, and Estelle, which is the Latin for a star.
9,227 in the 1920s
#378
Angelo Angelo means messenger, and it charts in all seven markets within a 365-place spread — the United States 304th, France 343rd, Northern Ireland 397th, Scotland 522nd, England and Wales 569th and Ireland 669th.
9,207 in the 1920s
#379
Melba
9,124 in the 1920s
#380
Mike Mike is a boy's name, the short form of Michael, from a Hebrew question meaning who is like God.
9,117 in the 1920s
#381
Ora Ora has three unrelated sources — the Latin imperative meaning pray, the Hebrew for light, and an Albanian word for hour — and it is reviving across three markets.
9,070 in the 1920s
#382
Jacob Jacob is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "supplanter" or "holder of the heel," from Ya'aqov.
9,067 in the 1920s
#383
Jewel Jewel may descend from the Latin for a joke — the leading account traces it through Old French to jocus, a game or plaything, which would make the most precious thing in the house a toy by origin.
9,060 in the 1920s
#384
Nettie Nettie is a suffix that became a name — it is the tail end of Antoinette, Jeanette and Annette, cut loose and used on its own, so it began as the part of a name that carried no meaning at all.
9,036 in the 1920s

What Made a 1920s Name

Children in the United States were registered with it between 1920 and 1929. A name's position here is how many of them were.

Why Some Names Only Cover Part of the Decade

A name that appears in three of the ten years either arrived partway through or faded out — and either is more interesting than the total on its own. The statistics offices do not publish names given to very few children in a year, so a gap can also mean the count dropped below the threshold rather than to nothing.

Where to Go Next

Open any name to see its full curve — most of these have a hundred and forty years of it. Or compare the ends of the same measurement: the most popular names now and the rarest.